Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive • Hacker News Board

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#281

Post by davidw » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 9:54 AM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #138

tptacek wrote: post #121

Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library . During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VP…

I leans heavily toward the libertarian side, but I think libraries are one of the most important social services provided by local governments. Unlike other programs, absolutely everyone can get some direct benefit from the library - no matter what age or income level. Libraries, in my opinion, are a model of what social services should look like: universally beneficial, only practical at the community level, little…

> I think libraries are one of the most important social services provided by local governments

How about other needs governments sometimes provide to the less fortunate, such as food, shelter, medical care, and universal education?

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#282

Post by BadassFractal » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 10:00 AM UTC

I apologize ahead of time if I'm going to sound leftist, but the powers that be don't really need a well educated lower class that is able to think for itself and easily get access to quality information. It goes against the interests of the status quo.

However, if there's a lot of money for everybody to be made, then it will create some incentives to give these people just enough instruction that they can perform online purchases. The problem is that the lower 20-40% of the US population are in so much financial distress that purchasing apps for an iPad or a kindle book is not even remotely within their realm of possibilities. For them, there's Walmart.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#283

Post by etherael » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 10:09 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #279

etherael wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink. They're disheartening, but they're actually a good example in this particular instance as an illustration that people as a whole, even in places where you'd expect them to be, aren't so smart. It's much easier to have a gut reaction to a position and grunt a downvote out than actually engage in reasoned discussion and THINK about it. Even speak…

> Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink. Political discussion has, for a long time, been discouraged on HN. Down-voting is one way to encourage people to stop.

It's not just this instance, I've noticed in an increasingly broad variety of topics that when something goes against the accepted groupthink it is prone to silent downvoting. Even in the absence of ad homs, whining in general, etc.

Also you'd be pretty hard pressed to say that this question isn't expressly relevant to the original article being discussed, and isn't overtly political in the sense that noone is agitating for votes or any such thing.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#284

Post by com » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 10:45 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #148

snprbob86 wrote: post #41

This is a very well written story that takes what I already kinda of assumed to be true and made it feel very real. It's quite sad, really. I don't want to trivialize the plight of the poor, but I'm also concerned with the impact on the world's intellectuals. A somewhat relevant rant follows.... We were down in the bay area meeting investors a few weeks ago, and I took some time to walk around Standford's campus. It'…

Where I live most coffee shops have tables outside (is there a name in English for that space?), so you can work while you watch street vendors, people walking around and grandparents with children, not to mention the sun, trees, etc. It doesn't have a work environment, but it's very reinvigorating to stop for five minutes and appreciate the surroundings.

Depending on your English dialect it might be a terrace, pavement, patio or even verandah seating.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#285

Post by Helianthus » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 10:56 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #252

OP's statement is a strong argument against libraries. We're spending good money on buildings full of books that inadvertently provide some really important social services. If you've got a bucket catching drips from your leaky roof, you need roof repairs, not a better bucket. Here in England, we have an organisation that does exactly what the OP is espousing - guiding people who don't know where to turn for help. It…

Your mistake is you think a library is for providing books. In fact libraries stand for free public _information_. The distinction is critical and vastly important.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#286

Post by tptacek » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 12:00 PM UTC

ontoillogical wrote: post #270

tptacek wrote: post #121

Can I add to this one little point, which is a counterintuitive thing you can do to help your local library: Use your local library . During the year we started Matasano our Chicago team spent about 40%-50% of our time working from the Oak Park Public Library, sometimes in meeting rooms we booked, more often at study desks. It was great. The Internet access wasn't amazing but it was totally functional and we could VP…

I've never heard of anyone starting a company from a library. Was that something that was commonly done in the 90s (I'm assuming the Chicago office is that old)? If you were starting again in 2012, would you pick a library over a hackerspace or a shared office type deal for any reason other than cost?

We started in 2005.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#287

Post by randallsquared » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 2:13 PM UTC

westicle wrote: post #222

sliverstorm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you do is co-opt a coffee stand to open shop right outside your front door, or in a secluded corner. That way people can get food and stay longer, but the library doesn't just turn into a coffee shop with a few books. I've seen a few libraries with the just-outside-the-door model, and a Borders with a small Peet's upstairs. Both were well-executed.

I've never understood why coffee is considered such a draw-card. The local church embroidery group offers free coffee but i'm still not a regular attendee. Give me a library that has beer on tap any day.

It's mostly just to stay on par with bookshops, which allow you to come in and read for free, and typically have coffee shops in a part of them.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#288

Post by icebraining » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 2:56 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #279

etherael wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink. They're disheartening, but they're actually a good example in this particular instance as an illustration that people as a whole, even in places where you'd expect them to be, aren't so smart. It's much easier to have a gut reaction to a position and grunt a downvote out than actually engage in reasoned discussion and THINK about it. Even speak…

> Firstly, the downvotes are a recent manifestation of creeping groupthink. Political discussion has, for a long time, been discouraged on HN. Down-voting is one way to encourage people to stop.

This whole discussion is political. Downvoting mickey7's comments for that is extremely hypocritical, unless you downvote all comments and flag the submission.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#289

Post by jonhohle » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 3:06 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #281

jonhohle wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I leans heavily toward the libertarian side, but I think libraries are one of the most important social services provided by local governments. Unlike other programs, absolutely everyone can get some direct benefit from the library - no matter what age or income level. Libraries, in my opinion, are a model of what social services should look like: universally beneficial, only practical at the community level, little…

> I think libraries are one of the most important social services provided by local governments How about other needs governments sometimes provide to the less fortunate, such as food, shelter, medical care, and universal education?

The problem I have with government provided food, shelter, and to a large extent medical care is that they are charities, only benefit a small subset of the population, while encouraging self destructive behavior in some cases (they are easy systems to exploit and are regularly exploited). This makes them expensive and inequitable. I have no problem with charity and there is a ligitimate place for it within a community, but I disagree that governments are effecient at running them.

Public education is also important, but I would hardly say its a model social program. Everyone benefits from an educated population, again, in an optimal case, there is little conflict of interest, and in general, it elevates the lives of those using the service. At the same time, it's something that could be done privately in the home or without any government intervention - and for most of history it was. It's also a bloated beauracratic mess, a representation of just how inefficient government programs can be. There are fantastic people in the trenches in schools being led by goons and politicians with little interest or knowledge about what is good for developing kids.

Re: Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive

#290

Post by thyrsus » Sun, Feb 19, 2012, 3:21 PM UTC

tnuc wrote: post #68

One of the saddest parts of filling in these government forms online is that some of them time out after 15 or 20 minutes. I helped someone fill out few of these once because they were having trouble. Even when I had all the information in front of me and the person next to me to organize the information it still timed out. I managed to do one of them on the third try. There is no way that someone with limited comput…

I was subjected to that last weekend, filling out FASFA forms. It would throw up an "I'm timing out" box every ten minutes, and if you didn't click in the next five, it was gone.

It took me 32 working hours to pull together the records to satisfy that form, of which 16 hours were "PTO" from my day job. Mostly because it was effectively necessary to get our 2011 joint tax return done, and my spouse has an (excruciatingly) small business. Once the taxes were done, I used a kitchen timer to make sure I clicked on that "I'm timing out" box which was hidden in another window while I was getting transaction reports.

Someone on NPR had the gall to claim the form would take at most a half hour. The only way I can see that working is if you had no complications in your life (investments, medical expenses, one employer).